Roman Verostko
ALGORITHMIC POEMS: the Joy of Digital
Preview: 5th November 2010, 7-9 pm
The artist will be present at the preview.
Exhibition: 6th November 2010 - 22th January 2011
Special event on Saturday, 6th November at 3 pm
Talk: THE JOY OF DIGITAL ART - Roman Verostko and Frieder Nake, seriously
In English. Admission is free.
" These works celebrate the charm and grace of algorithmic form, “the joy of digital”. They beckon us to ponder the process whereby the stark logic of algorithms generates exuberant playfulness and quiet undulation. I created these visual poems by writing instructions to guide brushes & pens mounted on a drawing machine. This process marries mind and machine. It challenges me to rise above the tedium of writing code and controlling machines – to arrive at the sweet moment when the burden of painstaking work yields its charm and grace in visual form. The fruition of these works awakened memories shared with my wife Alice, memories of rare moments we experienced while trekking nature centers in all seasons. Finding such rich memories in algorithmic form speaks eloquently of 'the joy of digital' ”.
RV, September, 2010
C.E.B. Reas
Compendium 2004-2010
The artist will be present at the opening.
Exhibition: 11th September - 3rd October 2010
For Reas (b. 1972) software is not a tool for reworking data such as a digital photo, but the wriiting of the concept in text and code is the core of the artwork.
Inspired by Sol Le Witt who has written down instructions in the form of text for his famous wall drawings that were then executed by third persons, C.E.B. Reas is expanding his conceptional approch. In software art generative software procedure replace the human hand following the precise instructions of the artist. The center of the work is the process according to Reas' famous instruction: "Define a process and translate it into an image". The concept of the artist is written as a text in English language leaving a large space for interpretation. When transferring the text into a programming language, very divers aethetical results can be evoked depending on the chosen programming language and the person transferring the text into an image. This was subject to Reas' research by his artwork {Software}Structures that was commissioned by the Whitney-Museum in New York in 2004 (see: http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/softwarestructures/).
In the Process series Reas has explored the relationship between naturally evolved and artificial systems. Organic forms are emerging from precise mechanical instructions. The images visualise systems moving or at rest. Reas is transferring his software pieces into different media such as projection, images or sculptures. Each material highlights a different aspect of the software.
Instructions for Process 13:Bisect a rectangular surface and define the dividing line as the origin for a large group of Element 1. When each Element moves beyond the surface, move its position back to the origin. Draw a line from the centers of Elements that are touching. Set the value of the shortest possible line to black and the longest to white, with varying grays representing values in between.
(using Element 1 from the Library: Form: Circle + Behaviour: Move in a straight line + Constrain to surface + Change direction while touching another Element + Move away from an overlapping Element)
Implemented by C.E.B. Reas
Fall 2009, Summer 2010
Processing 1.0
"During the last seven years, I have continuously refined the system of Forms, Behaviors, Elements, and Processes. The phenomenon of emergence is the core of the exploration and each artwork builds on previous works and informs the next. The system is idiosyncratic and pseudoscientific, containing references ranging from the history of mathematics to the generation of artificial life."
C.E.B. Reas from the catalogue „Process Compendium 2004-2010“
For their open source software Processing that is meanwhile taught at numerous art academies Reas was awarded in 2005 together with Ben Fry the Golden Nica of Ars Electronica. His works have been shown internationally, at the Victoria & Albert Museum, Institute for Contemporary Art (London), New Museum for Contemporary Art (New York), NTT ICC (Tokyo), Künstlerhaus Wien, LAboral Gijon, ZKM (Karlsruhe), Zendai Museum of Modern Art in Shanghai, Telic (Los Angeles), BANK (Los Angeles), Eyebeam (New York), CCCB (Barcelona), STUK (Leuven), National Museum for Art, Architecture and Design (Oslo), amongst others.
Reas lives and works in Los Angeles where he is professor at the UCLA, Arts Deparment.
Intermezzo - artists of the gallery: 31st August -7th September 2010
Friday, 3rd September, 7-9pm: Special opening hours for seasonal opening of the galleries in Berlin-Mitte
Sunday, 5th September, noon-6pm: Wine tasting in 70 galleries in Berlin on the occasion of the centenary of the Association of German Praedikat Wine Estates
We show works of boredomresearch, Eelco Brand and Gerhard Mantz that have not been shown in Berlin before.
Eduardo Kac
Natural History of the Enigma
Exhibition: 28th May - 17th July 2010
Preview: 28th May, 7-9 pm
The artist
will be present at the preview.
The American artist Eduardo Kac (born 1962
in Brazil) is working since many years with biotechnology. At Gallery
[DAM]Berlin he presents the work group „ Natural History of the Enigma“.
The focal of the work consists of a transgenic flower which Kac
developed with the University of Minnesota. At first glance the „Edunia“
looks like a normal petunia, a common balcony plant. But the rose
flower with the red venes has incorproated the genes of the artist and
also reminds us in her colouring of flesh and blood. She is a hybrid
plant, a product of genetic manipulation. Genetic research, that will
change our life deeply and irreversibly in the future, mostly takes
place behind the closed doors of a laboratory. With his work, Kac takes
the subject into the public domain and puts the future developments up
for discussion.
Who is allowed to create new life-forms and
for which purpose? To what category does the new hybrid belong: do we
call it still a plant despite of the human genetic material?
For
„Natural History of the Enigma“ Eduardo Kac was awarded with the Golden
Nica of Ars Electronica in 2009.
Kac has
exhibited in the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris;
Kunsthalle Kiel, Germany; Oi Futuro and Museum of Modern Art, Rio de
Janeiro; OK Contemporary Art Center, Linz; InterCommunication Center
(ICC), Tokyo; Seoul Museum of Art, Korea, amongst others. His works can
be found in the following collections (selection): Museum of Modern Art,
New York; ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany, and in the Museum of Modern Art in
Rio de Janeiro.
Eduardo Kac received several awards for his
work like Leonardo Award for Excellence, ISAST, in 1998 and ICC Award
in Tokyo in 1999. He lives and works in Chicago.
Nach lautloser Explosion
(After a soundless explosion)
Gerhard Mantz
Preview: Friday, 26. March, 7-9 pm
The artist will be present at the opening.
A catalogue with an introductory text of Domenico Quaranta will be released for the exhibition.
Gallery [DAM]Berlin presents a solo exhibition of Gerhard Mantz with new virtual landscapes in Black and White.
In the series, the viewer enters the Earth after a major event. Whether it has been an explosion, that has covered the forests under a perfect thin layer of ashes, or a complete freeze of nature due to cold and frost, is not defined. The places that Gerhard Mantz shows in his virtual landscapes are not real places but landscapes of the soul. The strength of the pieces lies in their alienation and their ambivalence. Due to their brightness, they seem fragile and magic. Since the series is only executed in black and white, the light contributes an important part to the composition. It can be promising but equally be the blinding light of an explosion, a harbinger of a desaster.
Gerhard Mantz adds with his completely computer generated works a very contemporary position to the subject of landscape. Reminding at natural landscape views at first glance, his images refer through elements of alienation such as surface structures or irregularities of software to their creation process beyond real situations. They resemble archetypal landscapes that existed or will exist in far temporal distance, leaving the viewer in ambivalence confronted with the absence of any other living being and with the perspective of a lonely and often even threatened human being on nature.
"...An archetype is a stereotype before slipping into the banality of the commonplace. In other words, it is the beauty of the sky before becoming a desktop wallpaper. It is the end of the world before being translated into the last catastrophic blockbuster. It is a classical Venus before inspiring the last eau de toilette advertisement.
This is, in the end, what probably Gerhard Mantz is doing with his landscapes: turning stereotypes into archetypes, bringing them back to their origin and giving them back their original power..." (Excerpt of the catalogue text from Domenico Quaranta)
Gerhard Mantz (born 1950 in Neu-Ulm, Germany, academic education at the Kunstakademie Karlsruhe) lives and works in Berlin. International exhibitions e.g. Prague Biennial 4; P.S.1 MoMA, New York; Kunsthalle Würth; Micro Museum, Brooklyn; Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg; KMZA Berlin; Württembergischer Kunstverein; ZKM, Karlsruhe; Kunsthalle Rostock; Kunstverein Mannheim; Haus am Waldsee, Berlin; Kunsthalle Darmstadt.
Simultaneously, he participates at the exhibition "Gratwanderung" (ridge walk) at the Neuen Kunstverein Aschaffenburg e. V., s. http://nkvaschaffenburg.de/
GaMe!
International Group Exhibition
Exhibition: 2th February – 20th March 2010
Opening: Saturday, 30th January 2010, 4 - 6
pm
France Cadet will be present at the opening.
The
exhibition is part of transmediale.10 Futurity now!
France Cadet,
F, objects, sculpture, drawings
Todd Deutsch, USA, photography
Mark
Essen, USA, computer game
Joan Leandre, ES, digital video collage
(film)
Jason Rohrer, USA, computer game
Tale of Tales, B, computer
game
The exhibition presents for the first time in Berlin
international positions on the subject of computer games and electronic
toys. The spectrum includes interactive computer games, developed by
artists, a film collage of modified content of commercial games as well
as small toy robots; furthermore four photos from a series showing male
adolescents during a LAN-party.
The branch of commercial computer
games is booming and electronic toys are normal ingredients of a kid's
room. Since a couple of years artists have started dealing thoroughly
with this subject, critically analysing the aesthetics and content of
commercial computer games or developing alternative game concepts.
Playing,
one of the most natural activities of mankind, means experimenting,
learning, letting oneself be whisked away into another world, and
assuming a different identity. This has always fascinated people, and
every era generates its own games. Today, millions of people play
computer games. For a large part of the younger generation, they are an
inherent part of childhood and a signifiant factor of socialisation. The
spectrum of subjects encompasses the entire array of human life. The
image of the lonesome, isolated player is a thing of the past as well.
During LAN parties or online games, many players particitpate in the
same game, sometimes even playing together as groups. The first
commercially successful computer game was Atari's Pong released in 1972.
The game industry has grown continously ever since. The turnover of the
gaming industry has seen huge growth rates internationally. In 2001, it
topped the sales of the movie industry in the USA for the first time
ever, with $9.4 to $8.35 billion (manager-magazin.de, August 9th, 2002).
The
exhibition presents international positions highlighting different
aspects of the subject. Joan Leandre is working with software manipulation, in this case with commercial
computer games. For his film In the name of Kernel Series – Lonely
Record Sessions he has recomposed associatively sequences of ego-shooter
games, from which he has taken away all action figures, to a film and
sound collage. He says about the piece: "...the synthetic representation
of nature in worlds where common sense is lost. The contemplation of
ruins.“
From the sector of games developed by artists young positions
will be shown which have already been internationally recognised. Jason Rohrer's games are based on the
reduced aesthetics and the limited interactivity of early computer
games. In his games he deals with the overall themes of human existence.
The games of Tale of Tales are
also reduced to very little interactivity. The game The Graveyard
opposes a reflection on age against the usual action games, built in a
black and white graveyard scenery. Mark
Essen develops fast action games with odd control schemes and
nonsensical humour – in the exhibition he shows a piece on organ trade.
For
his photograpy series Gamers Todd
Deutsch has obseved young people during a two days LAN-party
taking place in a huge space where the participants bring their
computer, sleeping bags and food in order to play computer games in a
network. France Cadet transforms
small robotic toy-dogs into interactive animal sculptures and wall
trophies. She examines the behaviour of human beings and animals and
deals with the artifical creation of life as well as with the side
effects of cloning.
Links to the online games:
Mark Essen: http://messhof.com/all-games/
Jason Rohrer: http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/gravitation/
Tale of Tales: http://tale-of-tales.com/
Short biographies of the artists:
France Cadet (* 1971), lives and works in Aix-en-Provence, France. In addition to her degree at the Ecole Supérieure d'Art d'Aix-en-Provence she also studied Computer Science and Engineering with an emphasis on electronics. Today she teaches robotic at the Ecole Supérieure d'Art d'Aix-en-Provence. Her works have been shown in LAboral, Gijon; La Vilette, Paris; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Ars Electronica, Linz as well as in different institutions in Japan, Corea, Spain, Brazil. She received the 1st Prize of VIDA 6.0, Madrid, and the Digital Stadium Awards in Tokyo. The Museum of Contemporary Art MEIAC in Badajoz, Spain, purchased one of her robots.Todd Deutsch (*1969) lives and works in Minneapolis, USA. In 1996, he received a Master of Fine Arts at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. His photography series deal with families, male adolescents and their game culture. Regularly, he participates in exhibitions, especially in the USA, and received several photography awards in the last 10 years. His works are part of the collections of the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, Illinois; Trisescuela de fotografia, Montevideo, Uruguay, amongst others.
Mark Essen (*1986) lives and works in Los Angeles, USA. He received a BA in Film and Electronic Arts from Bard College in New York and is a game artist. His games have been shown at music venues and art festivals around the world. In 2009, his work was part of the exhibition Younger Than Jesus at the New Museum in New York.
Joan Leandre (*1968) lives and works in Barcelona, Spain. He studied Fine Art at the Barcelona Massana School in Spain and is member of the OVNI Archives (Observatory of Non Identified Video) since 1993. Joan Leandre has been included in exhibitions at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; El Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; ZKM, Karlsruhe; iMAL, Brussels; NTT Inter Communication Center (ICCI), Tokyo; Hartware MedienKunstVerein, Dortmund; Ars Electronica, Linz; transmediale, Berlin; Whitney Biennale, New York; Biennale Moskow.
Jason Rohrer (*1977) lives and works in Potsdam, New York, USA. He holds a BS and MEng in Computer Science from Cornell University. He is an independent programmer and critic. His games have been shown at festivals and art exhibitions in Park City, Toronto, Montreal, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Lleida, Spain. Gravitation won the Jury Prize at IndieCade, and Between won the Innovation Award at the 2009 Independent Games Festival. Rohrer was selected for inclusion Esquire's December 2008 "Genius Issue" along with 27 other innovators.
Tale of Tales BVBA is a games development studio, founded by Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn in Belgium in 2002. Their games have been shown in exhibitions internationally. Their name is based on a book of Giambattista Basile, in which he collects folk tales that had previously only been part of oral tradition.